Before King Solomon’s Temple By Sir Knight Fred M. Duncan
magine, if you will, Jerusalem three lim meaning “foundation of Shalem.” Acmonths before construction started cording to Biblical accounts, Jerusalem was on King Solomon’s Temple. Jerusalem inhabited by a mix of peoples described as would have been inundated with 153,000 Jebusites. During the first Bronze Age the workers arriving to build the Temple. Can settlement evolved into Israelites via the you imagine how your town of 2,000 development of a distinct Yahweh-centric monotheistic belief system. Jerusalem, would handle such an influx of workers? What was the source of water, how one of the oldest cities in the world, has a was sanitation handled, how were the very active history, having been destroyed workers housed, what foods existed twice, besieged twenty-three times, capbefore the 153,000 workers came to tured and recaptured forty-four times, and construct King Solomon’s Temple, and attacked fifty-two times. Jerusalem, captured by David, bewas the food supply adequate to feed the Temple workers in addition to the came the capitol of the Jewish kingdom. residents? Archaeologist Hillel Geva of David captured the fortress of Mount the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Zion¹ and named it the City of David to conservatively estimates Jerusalem’s distinguish it from Jerusalem generally.² population near 2,000 prior to the David built his temple on the threshing building of King Solomon’s Temple. floor of Ornan the Jebusite where God The population of Jerusalem at the stopped Abraham from sacrificing his end of the eighth century BC, accord- son, Isaac. David’s reign in Jerusalem lasted thirty-two years. By the time Soloing to Geva, was 8,000. The earliest traces of human settle- mon was anointed King, Jerusalem was ment in what became Jerusalem date a city of crowded, narrow streets with from the late Chalcolithic Period or early spacious quarters for royal palaces and Bronze Age. The city was known as Urusa- court retinue.
I
The Temple Mount in Jarusalem, said to be the site of King Solomon’s Temple. Photo by the editor. knight templar
13
